There Once Was A Someone – One Small Pixel

Ministry of Stories | There Once Was A Someone

We are passionate about good causes, so when Radley Yeldar asked us to create a film for The Ministry of Stories, an imaginative space and community that supports and inspires young people to write, we couldn’t resist.

The Concept

The Ministry of Stories run innovative storytelling and writing workshops in disadvantaged areas that empower young people’s imaginations and build confidence, self-respect and communication skills, and also provides a publishing platform for young writers so their voices and stories are heard.

Partnering with motion design studio Mr Kaplin, we came up with the charming tale of a character who lives in a world full of stories and needs help to get their voice heard

A fable for the modern world where there is so much content wherever we look that it can be difficult to know how to even start telling your own story.

To find out more about the Ministry of Stories and how you can support their work please visit their website – ministryofstories.org

The Process

In development, there were three areas we needed to get right – the characters themselves, the world they inhabited and how they would talk to each other. Our goal was to strike a balance so the film felt original and stylised, but not so abstract that it was difficult to feel empathy for our characters.

We started with concept sketches exploring what the characters might look like, and from there designed a minimalistic world that they might live in. From an early stage, we knew we didn’t want the characters to have human voices so their communication came in the form of stylised typography and symbols that were given context by the voiceover.

Client

The Ministry of Stories

Executive Producer

Hugh Ip

Music and Sound Design

White Noise Lab

Agency

Radley Yeldar

Scriptwriter

Stephen Marsh

Voiceover

Kait Borsay

Agency Producer

Jules Mascarhenas

Design and Animation

Mr Kaplin

Audio Mix

Azimuth Post